


Flypaper

by acommontater



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 15:49:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6121536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acommontater/pseuds/acommontater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alexander imagines that sculptors who look at a blank block of stone and find what they want to create in it the same way that he looks at a blank page and full inkwell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flypaper

**Author's Note:**

> *hops from one trashbin to another* Hello friends.
> 
> This is loosely inspired by Cornelia Funke's Inkheart series, where some people have the power to bring characters/people into real life by reading their book aloud. (Also a series that I will forever be bitter about, but that is completely beside the point.)

“Books are like flypaper, memories cling to the printed pages better than anything else.”  
― [Cornelia Funke](https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15873.Cornelia_Funke), [Inkheart](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2628323)  


 

 

 

He writes and writes and writes.

He learned long ago that writing is the only way to preserve anything. Forget the jars and salts and cold rooms that he is surrounded by day after day. Words, ink and paper, make anything last forever.

 

He writes of a young man, like himself, and fills him with all his anger at his father and all of the thoughts that race through his mind late at night that make him hate himself (sometimes. Other times…). He writes and the young man gets away from his metaphorical island, only to keep finding himself trapped and trapped and trapped and…. Alexander can’t write his way out of the corner so he writes the young man dying in a fit of glory.

(He doesn’t not meet John Laurens until years later, and when he dies it feels as though someone has removed his very lungs. The only difference from page to life is that there is no glory in John’s death. ‘The war was already over’, his father writes, and Alexander closes himself off in his office and writes and writes and writes and… writing is for preservation, it cannot bring back the dead.)

 

He writes of a young man, like himself, and fills him with all the best parts of himself and gives him the power and wealth that he himself cannot even dream of. He writes and the young man lives out his life in glory and meets the rich and powerful and he travels and travels and travels and finds joy where ever he goes. Alexander doesn’t finish this story, except to note that the young man lived a long, full life of the kind that he cannot begin to imagine.

(He meets the Marquis de Lafayette after he meets John Laurens. The marquis is even younger than they are, but optimism shines through him. Alexander does not live to see the ending of Lafayette’s story and the results of his long, full life.)

 

He write of a young man, like himself, and gives him all the simple things that he desires to have. He writes and the young man has peace of mind and a jovial countenance that puts people at ease. The young man in the story has skill in his craft and he works his way up from his poor, but loving family. The young man grows and finds a wife and has a family and is content to rest on his laurels.

(Hercules Mulligan is the first person he meets and befriends when he gets to America. Hercules is crass and silver-tongued and has a large heart. He is utterly unlike anyone who Alexander has ever met before and he takes Alexander in under his wing with a broad smile.)

 

He writes of a young man, like himself, and fills him with all the things he cannot be and gives him the same darkness that sits ever present in the back of his mind. He writes, and this young man reads and learns, he watches and waits and learns the value of staying silent and listening. Alexander knows these things, but he just… can’t. The young man on his page finds love despite the odds, but he finds himself writing in circles and circles and circles and… he wonders what it would be like to meet this character of his. He cannot imagine it.

(He meets Aaron Burr not long after arriving in America. He never does learn to understand him.)

 

He writes of a young woman, unlike himself, and gives her the goodness of the world. She is strong and sensible and smiles often. The young woman is pleasant and well-liked by those that meet her, and she is loyal to those that she loves. She does not leave them or forget them or stop loving them (like his mother, like his father, like his brother).

(He meets Eliza Schyler years later and finds himself so besotted that the words he prides himself on fly clean out of his head. She never does leave him or forget him or stop loving him.)


End file.
